Wednesday, October 3, 2012

If you're having A Day, please immediately read the Wikipedia entry for "The Universe," because, whoa, you guys, what the hell is the universe? Seriously! WHAT DO YOU THINK THE UNIVERSE IS? Or reality? Is it inside a snow globe or what? Turtles all the way down?

Let's discuss it quickly, figure it out once and for all, and then go back to never thinking about it at all, ever. Taylor Swift and John Mayer, etc. Opaque tights. Carbohydrates. J.K. Rowling wants quote approval. "The Hobbit" is three movies. Eric Clapton is Dog.

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@gigglefest The one and only time I got stoned, I thought that the entire universe was inside my body and I started crying. (This is why it was the one and only - SO STRESSFUL. I'm clearly not made for that sort of recreation.)

It's amazing to think that in a universe that's at least 89 billion light years in diameter, and contains billions if not trillions of start and planets, there is a small planet inhabited by us. And on this small planet, there are billions of people scattered across its surface with infinite possibilities for interaction. How humbling to witness the cruelty of the cosmos as two of these people, with comically oversized suitcases in hand, managed to block my path and therefore make me miss a train when I was already late to a meeting this morning because they couldn't decipher a detour sign that was just a giant arrow, pointing the direction that they needed to go.

It truly makes you feel insignificant! Which may explain why yesterday a student on campus took her time lifting her skateboard up over the curb (and blocking me from biking past her to the bike rack) so that she could skateboard fifteen feet to her building, get off again, and walk in. In comparison to the totality of existence, I'm barely here.

Okay, whoa. DUDE. Theories? What is dark matter, really? I always like to think of it as a parallel universe existing on top on ours that can't see us & we can't see them. (I don't know anything about science. But science doesn't know much about dark matter, apparently, so perhaps my theory is plausible!)

@Verity First, I'm very happy to see that actress again. I adored her on ER and I like the spunkiness to the roles she plays. She's very good playing off the Doctor as well. I'm glad to see someone in (what I assume to be) a romantic relationship with the Doctor who manages to be on somewhat equal footing with him (vs Martha's unrequited puppy love, which was annoying.)

But, mostly, being introduced to her just raises way way way more questions (like: when is the Doctor allowed to reveal his name? I hope it's when little Time Lord babies are born! NO SPOILERS.) One of the reasons I like Doctor Who so much is how much the show holds back but then dangles little bits of mythology to chew over. Contrast to Lost, the last show I mainlined in a matter of weeks, this show doesn't get so wrapped up in WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN and still allows us to have weeks with little more going on than The Doctor Does Something Awesome Followed by Convenient Resolution. It just makes the heavier/denser stuff even more interesting, y'know?

@Sorbee Yes, the Doctor Who writers like raising questions. It keeps the audience on their toes! But yes, River is great, and seeing her on an equal footing with the Doctor is lovely. (Not a romantic relationship, but what do you think of the relationship between the Doctor and Donna? I love it. She refuses to allow them to be on different levels.)

@Alli525 I don't know, but lately her default advice seems to be "Maybe you should rethink your entire relationship!" when all the letter writer wanted was advice on how to tell his partner he's kinky, or something.

@Alli525 I've mentioned before, but her kink-and-general-sex-negativity means I just can't deal with her anymore. (I suppose it makes the name more appropriate.) I just want to sit her down and say, "kinky sex is just more complicated sex. Some people like complicated things in their lives, some people don't. But it's really no different from one person preferring Twilight Imperium III on board game night, while the other prefers Hungry Hungry Hippos. Mismatched couples can learn to compromise, or they can find other partners who prefer d20s/yelling "uno", but neither one of them is a gross weirdo who deserves to be shunned. And acting like it just makes you look like the only kid in class yelling "nerd!" at the kid who likes doing her math homework."

@ThatWench I think, for all references to "kink," she just automatically fills in the weirdest/most dangerous/grossest thing she can possibly imagine and goes from there.

I was REALLY stunned, in the previous chat, when she answered the question about sexual harassment and then expressed SURPRISE and OFFENSE that other people in the chat were sending messages about how the woman who'd asked the question was a slut who'd deliberately set out to sleep her way to the top! GOSH, PRUDIE, WHERE COULD THEY HAVE GOTTEN THE IDEA THAT WAS APPROPRIATE BEHAVIOR IN YOUR CHATROOM.

My favorite theory about the end of the universe is the Boltzmann Brain hypothesis, which says that as entropy (disorder) in the Universe increases, it might arrange itself into something so complicated, it's self aware. A brain, basically. Our universe might become a brain. A BRAIN. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/15/science/15brain.html?pagewanted=all

my favorite Stoned Universe Idea (I have soooo many) is that there are an infinite number of universes, and between them every single possible event is played out. so every event you can fathom/daydream about on the reg has happened, or will, somewhere. it follows then that imagination is just a form of inter-universal space travel.

@give cheese some pants Is this string theory? I like thinking about this. I also like the theory that the universe has actually expanded and shrunk multiple times before and will do so multiple times again. And so everything that is happening has happened already and will happen again, but do we have the power to change our destinies!?

@Lisa Frank: It sounds like the "Many Worlds" interpretation of quantum mechanics, or the more general notion of parallel universes. Personally, my favorite universe is the one in which James Franco and I hook up. A lot.

@Lisa Frank - if I remember string theory correctly from high school (so, you know, my basic lesson has been filtered through 10 years of my life so I could possibly be all wrong about this), this isn't string theory, but it's the theory of parallel universes which is pretty much thought about by the same scientists.

I think about this all the time. Not always in a I Am Thinking About This way but it is simmering there in the back of my brain almost constantly, and sometimes lets out a puff of steam that I can trace for a while until it dissolves back into my mind, which is essentially constructed the same way the universe is, anyway.

@martinipie - I know this is always in the back of my mind, and I feel like I spend a lot of energy trying to push it back, because at least for me it's hard not to become depressed and hopeless when I really THINK about the UNIVERSE

I went to the Museum of Natural History last month and stood watching this video for several minutes until my boyfriend told me I could just watch it on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17jymDn0W6U

I would have stood in place much, much longer if he hadn't forced me up to the dinosaur floor, because the "light from an earlier universe" thing blew my mind. WHAT. There was an EARLIER universe? No no no, it's all too much!

@maybe partying will help - speaking of novels, I started reading The Hitchiker's Guide to the Universe just a few months after I finished up my theoretical physics class, and I remember being surprised and delighted by how much legitimate science was in that series.

@miss lonelyhearts I could basically watch that video forever. But I think when it says "light from a younger universe," it means light from our universe, when it was younger. Not that there couldn't be earlier universes, though, which is totally a mindblowing idea.

Funny you should ask, I AM having A Day, A Hell of a Day, in fact. Plus I already have this sort of tenuous relationship with The Infinite, so naturally when I saw this post, I burst into tears all over again. Awesome.

Is this where I admit that I ordered one of those "Great Courses" deals about Quantum Revolution and Relativity and all that good stuff, maaany months ago, and yet it remains in it's original plastic because I can barely get through the first paragraph of the Wiki page on Quantum Physics? Yes.